Apple, Microsoft, and others, a little over a month ago in a letter to the EU, warning that the EU's new proposed unified patent law could lead to more patent trolling:

To mitigate the potential for abuses of such power, courts should be guided by principles set forth in the rules of procedure to assess proportionality prior to granting injunctions. And PAEs should not be allowed to use injunctions for the sole purpose of extracting excessive royalties from operating companies that fear business disruption.

A new front opened today in the patent wars between large technology companies, as a consortium that owns thousands of patents from the Nortel bankruptcy auction filed suit against Google and other manufacturers alleging infringement. Rockstar, which is owned jointly by Apple, Blackberry, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony, filed suit in US District Court in Texas. In addition to Google, the consortium has alleged infringement by Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung, and ZTE.

If the deal falls through (which I expect), shares will plumment and I'll walk away with a smile and a fast buck.

My NOK shares are pretty much amazing right now though, I recently opened up a new position with them and I'm up almost 14%. Expecting that to continue through the close of the Microsoft deal -- the shareholders meeting where they approve of the deal should send that up pretty nicely.